{"id":2559,"date":"2025-10-16T22:23:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T22:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/?p=2559"},"modified":"2025-10-21T16:04:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:04:00","slug":"conrad-bakker-recreated-all-1100-books-in-pioneering-land-artist-robert-smithsons-personal-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/16\/conrad-bakker-recreated-all-1100-books-in-pioneering-land-artist-robert-smithsons-personal-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Conrad Bakker Recreated All 1,100+ Books in Pioneering Land Artist Robert Smithson\u2019s Personal Library"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Conrad<\/p>\n

An autodidact and polymath, Robert Smithson<\/a> cemented himself as one of the pre-eminent land artists in his short lifetime. Along with his fellow artist and wife Nancy Holt, Smithson pioneered a new way of working that explored connections to the landscape and place and endlessly probed the formation of knowledge. <\/p>\n

When he died in a plane crash in 1973 at just 35 years old, he left behind a vast personal library that represented his broad interests: there were books on crystals and rock minerals, dinosaurs and insects, myths and children\u2019s rhymes, and classics like James Joyce\u2019s Finnegan\u2019s Wake<\/em> and Jorge Luis Borges\u2019 Ficciones<\/em>. Holt donated the entirety of Smithson\u2019s collection<\/a>\u2014 approximately 1,120 books\u2014to the Archives of American Art after his death, where it\u2019s still housed today.<\/p>\n

\u2018Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club\u2019 member Pep Fern\u00e0ndez, holding his book in Barcelona, Spain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s also, though, another way to peek into the narratives and materials that shaped Smithson\u2019s thinking and practice. In 2019, Conrad Bakker<\/a> completed a five-year-long project of recreating every title in that original collection on a 1:1 scale. Presented in museums and galleries from Utah to Arkansas to New York, \u201cUntitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club\u201d is both a painstaking ode to the pioneering artist and a bold consideration of how we access and consume information.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t really remember my first encounter with Robert Smithson, but I\u2019ve always been a fan of his artwork and, in particular, the way he oriented his sculptures to coexist inside the physical space of a gallery and outside in the landscape,\u201d Bakker says. He first encountered the artist\u2019s library through Ann Reynolds\u2019 Robert Smithson: Learning from New Jersey and Elsewhere<\/a><\/em>, which provided a comprehensive catalog of each title and edition in the collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was captivated by this wonderful list of books and curious about the diversity of his research subjects, the intensity of his self-education through books,\u201d Bakker says, adding that the library also serves as a \u201ctime capsule of artistic research of the 1960s. I imagined this collection of books as an extension of Robert Smithson\u2019s mind, his curiosity, and thinking.\u201d <\/p>\n

This prompted one component of Bakker\u2019s ongoing Untitled Projects<\/em>, a practice of recreating everyday objects like chocolate bars<\/a> or VHS tapes<\/a> to explore facets of economic systems, production, and consumption. Using images from online booksellers, he carved and painted wooden replicas of each edition. <\/p>\n

\"a
Detail of \u2018Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club\u2019 installed in the exhibition \u2018Extra Taste,\u2019 International Objects, NYC, 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Displayed in cardboard-like boxes and stacked on the floor, Bakker\u2019s collection has taken many forms, from room-sized installations to a full-scale bookstore in the storefront of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas. While the library remains intact in his studio, the \u201cBook Club\u201d also allowed collectors to purchase a second sculpture for a time. He created about 350 additional works for this element of the project.<\/p>\n

The library is just one part of Bakker\u2019s interest in books as objects, which includes a used paperback sale<\/a> and an archive of self-help titles<\/a> from the 1970s. For the artist, these objects offer numerous lines of inquiry from \u201cbooks as historical records of culture and personal memories, books as
commodities, bookstores as public spaces, books as (outdated) technology, and books as portable containers of information, instructions, and ideas,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

Bakker is currently working on several projects, including a full-scale copy shop (think 1980s-era Kinko\u2019s) for The Weather Station<\/a> in Lafayette, Indiana. In early 2026, he\u2019ll also show a piece connecting capitalism and climate change at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art<\/a>. The library is likely headed to Stockholm in the coming months, but keep an eye on the project\u2019s Instagram<\/a> for more.<\/p>\n

You might also enjoy Bernie Kaminski\u2019s papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 objects<\/a> and Matt Stevens\u2019 Good Movies as Old Books<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"a
Detail of \u2018Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club\u2019 installed in the exhibition \u2018Extra Taste,\u2019 International Objects, NYC, 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"an
Installation view of \u2018Untitled Project: Smithson\u2019s Books\u2019 installed in the storefront windows of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas, 2021<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u2018Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club\u2019 member Ruth Lopez holding her book<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Detail of \u2018Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club\u2019 installed at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Detail of \u2018Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club\u2019 installed in the exhibition \u2018Extra Taste,\u2019 International Objects, NYC, 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Detail of \u2018Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club\u2019 installed in the exhibition \u2018Extra Taste,\u2019 International Objects, NYC, 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"a
Conrad Bakker inside \u2018R. Smithson Books.\u2019 Photo by Meredith Mashburn Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member<\/a> today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Conrad Bakker Recreated All 1,100+ Books in Pioneering Land Artist Robert Smithson\u2019s Personal Library<\/a> appeared first on Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An autodidact and polymath, Robert Smithson cemented himself as one of the pre-eminent land artists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2559"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2572,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions\/2572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}